


and on the eighth night

by altschmerzes



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hanukkah, Jewish Character, Mike is clueless for a genius, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 22:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/pseuds/altschmerzes
Summary: Repeated references to “the night” and an invitation to his boss-turned-friend’s place for dinner have Mike Ross feeling on edge all week. When the night finally comes, and he gets to Harvey’s apartment and sees the menorah on the table, it finally hits him. “Oh. You’re Jewish. It’s Hanukkah.”The look Harvey gives him is the one he always gives when Mike observes the obvious. “Well yeah.”(ktavnukkah day five, 'night')





	and on the eighth night

**Author's Note:**

> yet another discovery that an actor i like is jewish leading to a fic where their character is jewish. 
> 
> (i've only seen through season three, so i'm not familiar with canon marcus specter, just what i've read, and honestly i'm not especially happy with what they chose to do with him. so it's not canon compliant in that respect.)

The first mention Mike hears of The Night is a passing comment from Donna, poking her head into Harvey’s office early one morning soon after he’d arrived.

“Oh, Harvey,” she’d said, voice offhand and easy like an afterthought tacked onto a casual conversation. “When is the night this year?”

“The sixteenth,” Harvey tells her like any part of that sentence had made sense at all, which it certainly hadn’t to Mike, standing by Harvey’s desk with a handful of folders and a bewildered expression. He intended to ask what Donna had been talking about, but by the time he’d turned towards the desk Harvey had moved on, already halfway through writing some instruction on a post-it, ‘because Lord knows you’re gonna forget something important the instant you leave this office’.

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say he forgot about it immediately. Mike doesn’t forget things, and more to the point, any opportunity to pester Harvey about something potentially personal or embarrassing is an opportunity he’s not about to pass up. But for the moment it is shelved to a back burner (the sixteenth is still a week away), while he deals with putting out several small fires that have sprung up in the Larpenteur case during the eight whole hours since he’d last worked on it the night before. It goes onto the back burner and there it stays until a couple of days later, when once again, someone happens to mention The Night within earshot of Mike.

This time it’s Jessica, an addendum to the end of a hallway-long meeting about the fact that Larpenteur himself had once again lied to them, leading to several days’ worth more of work to look forward to. Harvey and Jessica talk and walk quickly, leaving Mike doing an undignified scramble to keep up, and he’s almost too focused on not tripping and landing on his face that he misses the comment. _Almost_.

“Will Marcus be joining us for the night this year?” Jessica asks, and Mike’s whole face morphs into a mask of confusion and he mouths ‘Marcus?’, never having heard that name before. Seeing as nobody was paying any attention to him, the silent question doesn’t receive an answer. Jessica’s, on the other hand, does, and it would appear that she and Donna are both on the same wavelength of understanding with Harvey, given he asks for no clarification this time either.

“Yes, he is.” When he gives the answer, Harvey’s face changes a little, almost imperceptibly, had Mike not been the kind of nosy asshole who paid attention to that sort of thing. His eyes crinkle a little at the edges, a smile he won’t let all the way out. It’s a softened expression, and Mike is absolutely sure that he must never have gotten out of bed this morning, and this is some sort of fever dream brought on by the kind of sickness you get living in a probably asbestos infested hellhole of an apartment building.

“Good,” Jessica says, nodding. “I’ll look forward to seeing him there.”

So the interaction ends, with both of Mike’s superiors headed towards their respective offices, and Mike himself frozen in the middle of the hallway as he tries to figure out whether or not everyone is just pulling one over on him.

It’s later that day that The Night becomes something that involves him directly when Donna asks him, “You’re coming, right? On Saturday?” When Mike looks like he’s completely without any idea what the hell Donna is talking about, she whirls accusingly on Harvey. “You haven’t _invited him_ yet?”

“I was getting around to it,” Harvey says defensively, looking to Mike and adding, “My place, 7:30, I’ll send you the address.” He doesn’t offer an explanation of what for, or who else is going to be there, and Donna looks satisfied, so that is the end of it.

Which is how Mike Ross finds himself standing outside Harvey’s apartment, still dressed in work clothes because if anyone would have a dress code for a friendly dinner it was Harvey, nervously waiting to be let inside to greet the god-knows-what that’s there waiting for him.

The door opens, and several things occur to Mike at once. He stands there on the threshold, probably looking like an absolute jackass, while he sorts through them individually and figures out what they mean.

Harvey is not wearing a suit. Jessica is not wearing a suit. Donna is not wearing the Donna-version of a suit. _Nobody but Mike_ is dressed like they’re at work, and while Jessica and Donna both still look like they could walk right into an upscale restaurant and not look out of place, Harvey himself is in… Jeans. Blue jeans and a henley. Casual street clothes. Albeit very clean and expensive looking casual street clothes, but street clothes nonetheless, and Mike’s tie had never felt tighter around his neck.

There’s something cooking on the stove. No, that’s not entirely accurate. There is something _Harvey_ is cooking on the stove, and the mental image of his boss-come-probably-his-closest-friend-isn’t-that-some-kind-of-sad standing in a kitchen holding a spatula is one Mike will never get out of his head, nevermind that he wouldn’t _let it_ out of his head, it being way too priceless to ever forget. A plate sits on the counter beside the stovetop and an examination - from still just inside the expansive apartment - shows the food in question to be some kind of hashbrown. _Latke_? His brain supplies the word as his eyes alight on something on the table, and everything up to this point clicks into place.

There’s a menorah. On the table. Full of candles.

“ _Oh_ ,” Mike says, looking from the menorah over to Harvey. “You’re _Jewish_. It’s _Hanukkah_. The night is the _last night of Hanukkah_.”

The look Harvey gives Mike then is the look that Harvey always gives Mike when his associate has said something he considers to be especially foolish or observed out loud a fact he considers to be accepted as general knowledge. “Well, _yeah_.”

Mike is saved from ridicule by all present who would surely revel in ripping him to pieces for not only failing to realize that it was Hanukkah, but that his boss of over a year is Jewish, by the sound of someone knocking loudly on the door.

“That must be Marcus,” Jessica says, indicating the door with the glass of red wine held in one elegant hand. Mike spares a moment to observe that Jessica always looks like she could step right into a personal interest piece in a magazine and not look the least bit out of place, before his attention is drawn to the door as Harvey opens it and the world turns upside down.

Because as soon as the door opens, there’s a strange man very suddenly in the living room, and the strange man is hugging Harvey, and Harvey is hugging him _back_.

“ _What_ ,” Mike hisses at Donna, who has come to stand next to him, “is _happening?_  Are you seeing this? _Tell me you’re seeing this_.”

Donna sighs and rolls her eyes, then takes it upon herself to, much in the tone of one explaining to a very small child that night happens because the Earth is spinning and not because a giant in the sky blew out a candle, tells him quietly, “That’s Mark. Harvey doesn’t get to see him much, so tease him about it, and I’ll have your ass.”

“Okay,” Mike whispers not at all shrilly, “Who is Mark?”

The way she looks at him is incredulous. “You’re kidding, right? Mark. As in Marcus Specter. As in Harvey’s little brother?”

“Oh.” Mike looks away from Donna back to the pair in the middle of the living room, apparently Harvey and his brother. The newcomer, Marcus, is slightly taller than Mike was expecting Harvey’s brother to be. He’s slimmer built than Harvey, wiry, and dressed not unlike Mike dresses in his downtime, navy blue hoodie over faded jeans. His face, just visible over Harvey’s shoulder, is sharp featured and narrow. Marcus doesn’t look much like Harvey at all, except around the mouth, and when he opens his eyes. He and Harvey have the same eyes. " _Oh_."

Mike watches, stunned into wordlessness, as Harvey gives Marcus a light thump on the back, other hand holding onto his brother so tightly minute creases spread out from his fingers. The visual proof of the depth of love that exists back behind a veneer of hair gel and well-honed smirks, the heart Mike always swore was in there somewhere, disappears after another moment as Harvey lets Marcus go, spinning him around to face the rest of the small gathering.

“Mike,” he says, picking his associate out of the line-up, and gesturing towards the newest arrival, who he still has by a hand gripping a hoodie-clad shoulder, “meet my brother Mark. Mark, meet my pet pain in the ass, Mike Ross.”

Marcus rolls his eyes and smiles, holding out his hand, which Mike shakes. “Ignore him, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Trust me,” Harvey puts in, as Mike decides he likes this guy, “he does.”

The rest of the night passes in the easy joy of good food and good company, and Mike finds himself relaxing into the easy camaraderie of a holiday he’s never celebrated before with people he’s never spent much time with outside of work, and one person he’d met only that night. They’d been waiting for Marcus to light the menorah, apparently, and Mike watches the reflection of the nine small flames in the glass of the window, bright against the skyline outside.

The candles burn until one by one they burn out, and Mike thinks that, of all the things The Night could have meant, this is a good ending to a strange story, and he may have to rethink his stance on surprises.


End file.
